<p>The thesis examines Miss Burney's methods of characterization and the extent to which they succeed or fail. Cahpter One is mainly biographical. Chapter Two attempts to show where Miss Burney's originality lies and how she adapts her methods of characterization from earlier fiction or from the stage. Chapters Three and Four, which support the general scheme outlined in Chapter Two with detailed character studies, are devoted to selected characters from all her novels, though the emphasis is on Evelina and Cecilia. The analysis of character is broadly based on Forster's classification into flat and round and the thesis draws more attention to Miss Burney's debt to the stage than previous critics have chosen to do.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

Master of Arts (MA)

<p>This thesis will examine the role impulse and impulsive behaviour play in the major works of Henrik Ibsen. The twelve plays examined have been broken down into four chapters, differentiated by the type of impulse being examined. Peer Gynt, A Doll's House, and An Enemy of the People have been treated together as the studies of the immature, impulsive character who finds himself restricted by societal impositions. Chapter II examines Ghosts, John Gabriel Borkman, and The Lady from the Sea as plays in which a character's instinctual nature has been wilfully repressed, resulting in human tragedy in Ghosts and John Gabriel Borkman, and social harmony in the third play. The Wild Duck, Rosmersholm, and Little Eyolf analyze the consequences of engaging in overtly impulsive behaviour. Through the efforts of a persuasive character who attempts to initiate an unimpulsive character into a new more instinctive type of behaviour, lives are destroyed in the first two plays and redeemed in the third. The final three plays to be considered, Hedda Gabler, The Master Builder, and When We Dead Awaken, concern themselves with the impulsively creative character and the paradoxical nature of the artistic act. In a final chapter, this emphasis on impulse will be related to Ibsen's primary ideas about human freedom and liberty.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

<p>From The Vengeance of Fionn (1917), written in imitation of Herbert Trench's Deirdre Wed, Austin Clarke was to go on to develop his own poetic voice. This thesis, after comparing these two poems, seeks to show the path that Clarke adopts in his early epic poetry. This stage of the young Clarke's poetic journey reveals how he uses the Irish mythological material as private and pUblic symbols and how its use, together with his adaptation of Gaelic prosody and Gaelic genres, places him in a direct line of succession to the Gaelic fili.</p> <p>The thesis traces the change of the poet's focus, from ancient saga to the Celtic-Romanesque period, from the public and private soul-building of the first stage to the public and private soul-searching of the second, from the fili of patriotism to the fili of the satire and the curse. Clarke, however, is constantly a Gaelic poet writing in English verse, a fact which gives a freshness, vividness and natural beauty to his poetry. Clarke's achievement makes him one of the most important influences on Irish verse since Yeats.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

<p>This thesis offers a basic, critical introduction to the work of the contemporary Irish writer, James Plunkett. As there is virtually no criticism of the writer, the work itself is examined in some depth. Strumpet City and Farewell Companions are discussed as novels which can be read in sequence, thus providing a unique view of Irish life between 1907 and 1947, and as individual works which stand on their own merit. Plunkett's growth as a writer is observed through his Collected Short Stories. The Gems She Wore: A Book of Irish Places is used as background material. In conclusion, a basic philosophy of brotherhood is seen as the uniting theme of all Plunkett's work.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

<p>This thesis examines some of Thomas Hardy's major fiction to determine the effect of the author's presence in his novels. After briefly discussing this aspect of the early novels, the thesis examines the role of the narrator in Far from the Madding Crowd, The Mayor of Casterbridge, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, and Jude the Obscure.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

<p>Mrs. Cowley's plays have not previously been the subject of separate critical study, and this thesis is therefore mainly concerned with the estabiishment of some preliminary oritical co-ordinates. With the exception of The Belle's Stratagem, none of the plays discussed has received more than incidental comment; two of them are still unpublished.</p> <p>The Introduction supplies a brief chronological outline of her dramatic career, giving essential information on each of her plays. In the four chapters which follow, a topical approach is taken, each chapter being concerned with a leading critioal theme:</p> <p>II. Taste. Individual characters isolated by some excess or eccentricity of "taste" are considered, and the term "taste" is discussed. The roles played by the comedian John Edwin are selected for separate treatment.</p> <p>III. Marriage. This chapter discusses Mrs. Cowley's ideal of marriage as it is presented in her comedies. Recurrent character patterns, and the roles played by Lewis and Miss Younge, are also considered.</p> <p>IV. Society. Mrs. Cowley's satirical treatment of the follies of fashionable society is seen to be modified by her belief in the possible rational enjoyment of society, and in the value of the traditional English virtues.</p> <p>V. Patriotism. Mrs. Cowley's view of the corrupting influence of foreign manners on English society, together with the more positive side of her patriotism, are examined as the basis of her ideal of Englishness. This ideal is seen as the conceptual centre of her comedies.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

<p>This thesis deals with Dickens' social criticism in Oliver Twist (1838), Dombey and Son (1846), Hard Times (1854) and Little Dorrit (1855). The major consideration is the discrepancy between Dickens' stated intentions and his achievement as a social critic. The analysis of the four novels revolves around an examination of the characterization, the explicit and implicit levels of meaning, and the escapist tendencies in the fiction.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

<p>The stress in the study of the clergy in Canadian fiction is on the clergyman's position in both the Church and society. The early novels, those written before 1920, are divided into two categories according to their common traits. The novels in the first category, the "evangelical romance," which is discussed in the first chapter, are found to have a surprisingly large number of common traits. Of these evangelical romances those of Ralph Connor were immensely popular when they were first written and until well on into the 1930's. Various factors in the novels account for the popularity. Although many of these features are no longer popular, Connor's novels ae still valuable for what they reveal of life in the early Canadian West and especially of the importance and nature of its religious life and its clergyman. Of the seven evangelical romances studies, Ernest Seton's The Preacher of Cedar Mountain is judged to be the best by modern standards.</p> <p>In the second chapter, seven "ecclesiastical" novels ae discussed. These novels have a number of features which clearly distinguish them from the evangelical romances. The seven are subdivided into two major groups. The first four novels discussed, The Lone Furrow, Committed to His Charge, Sunshine Sketches, and Arcadian Adventure's are all fairly objective in point of view and critical of laity and clergy. The miniters in the remaining three ecclesiastical novels are more like those in the evangelical novels, as are the laymen.</p> <p>The majority of clergymen and laymen in modern Canadian fection, which is discussed is chapter three, follow in the tradition of the first four ecclesiastical novels. The clergymen are discussed in two groups: six "prêtres manqué's" and three successful hypocrites. Ministers like those in the evangelical romances seem to have vanished from Canadian fiction, as do the devout churchmen of the second group of ecclesiastical novels. The peculiar nature of most of the clergymen in modern Canadian fiction reflects a decline in the importance of the church in society in general.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

Master of Arts (MA)